South America and South Africa

Last Saturday and Sunday I was in Otavalo, a town with about 70,000 inhabitants approximately two bus hours north of Quito, to see the famous market, which is by far the largest in Ecuador on weekends. I was joined by Osnat, an israeli girl from Tel Aviv, who was staying in the same hostel in Quito.

What made the market special for me was that many of the Otavalenos wore their traditional clothing – the women’s costumes consist of embroidered blouses, shoulder wraps and many coloured beads, the men wear their hair long under their hats, calf length pants, boots and ponchos. And to my great surprise it wasn’t packed with other tourists, of course some were there, and it seemed that this is truely a market for the indigenous people of that region. The market comprises four different markets in various parts of the town with streets filled with vendors. We arrived too late to see the livestock market but the artesian market, the most interesting part for the tourists, the food market, literally no foreigners to see, and the product market were still vibrant when we came around noon. (See also photos.)

The next day Osnat and I made a hike to the mountain Fuya-Fuya in the proximity of Otavalo. Our hike started at the Laguna de Mojanda on 3,715 m and we went up to the peak on 4,375 m. Given that we are still not fully acclimatized it was a good preparation for our climb to the Cotopaxi (5,897 m) we both intend to do later this month. As always when you climb/hike in higher altitude it was absolutely key to go slowly to control the breath and the heartbeat. The area around Otavalo is very nice for outdoor activities like hiking, mountain biking etc. as there are numerous volcanos. It is easy to stay some more days without getting bored but as we both had different plans we left Sunday afternoon to get back to Quito. Osnat went to her five day tour to climb Cotopaxi and I went to Riobamba, also to do the hike to Cotopaxi but on a different itinerary. (See also photos.)

While we were staying in the very nice Hostal Dona Esther we ate this excellent quinoa salad (quinoa is a grain typical for the Andes, very healthy, difficult to cultivate, and also available in Europe and the US). If you like you can try it out:

Boil the quinoa as required and then wait until it is luke-warm. Mixed it with (home-made) basil pesto, a little bit of thinly sliced red onions and very small pieces of tomato (more for the eye, less for the taste), a squeeze of lime juice and basil for the decoration. Then add tuna (the watery from the tin not the oily) but don’t mix it with the quinoa-pesto salad. Yummy!